Monthly Review of The Sorrows of War

The Sorrows Of War is a novel from a North Vietnam Soldier Bao Ninh, who wrote down his memories positive or negative of the almost fifteen years in the Military fighting for what he believed in. Bombs falling from the sky from aircraft, and guns blaring from both sides of the fronts of battle, stood Kien the main character a scout platoon leader for the North Veitnam Army. Standing by the window for his return was his lover Phoung, the girl next door, waiting for her lover to come home. What is it that brought him through more than fifty battles? For Phoung to wait for him?

Pick a character that interested you and write about them in depth.

Kien and Phoung knew each other since their childhood, and were high school sweethearts until the war erupted between North and South Vietnam. Their lives were torn apart when Kien left for the military before finishing High School, leaving empty spaces in each other's heart's. Everywhere he went, he always though of Phoung. From girls in the jungle, and women in an abandoned airport, to the nurses in the medical stations during the war. Phoung always remembered him because she lived in the apartment next door for most of the war waiting for his return.

Kien went to war with little training in any combat and  was assigned to the scouting platoon. Sneaking around the jungles in Vietnam his platoon, hunkered low to the ground crossing clearings avoiding others, and avoiding making noise. Hiding behind tress rocks and any cover they could find, the team crossed through. Hopping around like frogs through the undergrowth from ten to twelve hours a day was their lives. sometimes running into a battle they could not win was a patriotic thing to do, even though it might not had been the smartest. Being mowed down by machine fire, bodies become strewn all across the earth, flashing colors of red, orange, silver, and black. Almost there just a little more. From the novel Kien describes the video he had to watch when he was ready to go out for another battle:

"I am watching a U.S. war movie with scenes of American soldiers yelling as they launch themselves into combat on the TV screen, and once again I'm ready to jump in and mix it with the fiery scene of blood, mad killing, and brutality that warps soul and personality. The thirst for killing, the cruelty, the animal psychology, the evil desperation. I sit dizzied, shocked by the barbarous excitement of reliving close combat with bayonets and rifle butts. My heart beats rapidly as I stare at the dark corners of the room where ghost-soldiers emerge, shredded with gaping wounds." (pg.47)

Not only was Kien a strong young man, but he was also a crazed mass murderer by the end of the war. He could not help himself from killing the men before him to reach the goal of winning. The personal trials he had to go through when he was a child showed up as he was on the battle field and off it too. He would dream of his father and his paintings that were to early for his era, and his Phoung, the woman of his dreams, literally. These memories clashed with his previous battle memories when he witnessed his whole platoon get wiped out and he was the only one left, which happened to him often. He would loose forty-nine men only to have forty-nine come into it from the reserves.

What was the author's purpose(s) in writing this book, and how can you tell? How well was this purpose achieved?

His purpose was to relay his memories Some of the memories of his childhood for instance like his father and his paintings really urged him to go on and complete what was started. His father would always coup up in the attic of the apartment complex to paint. Then he died. Kien went through so much pain he turned into a drunk. He began writing stories about his life only to recite them to the mute girl who moved into the old room where his father used to paint.

"Story after story would pour out; they were horrible and they were vivid. Even she could read that on his lips and hear the sharp ends of certain words, words reserved for killing and for agony... It took some time for her to realize that what he had been doing in all those visits was repeating stories he had just written only hours earlier. She had become his sounding-board. He was greedily demanding of her that she listen to what he had written, even though he knew she could not understand fully what he related." (pg.112)

 The way you can tell what he was trying to tell us is by reading the book. Page after page he lures you into the stories of war only for the scenes to end and talk about his emotional dis-functions and his destroyed future. astounded by how much the war had changed him,he wrote this book about his life but he changed the main character's name to keep himself safe from the government when he first wrote it.

What are the weaknesses of this book, in your opinion?

The book could have been better if it was more recognized. It seemed like the Lord of the Rings books because of skipping around time. Also the book needed to be separated into chapters to help create a moment to pause and reflect on the words that were written. Also the different times created the ineffective choices of present, past, and present-participle phrasing. Accounting the times were hard to have free time to write, I think it should have been formatted into a journal entry form. When he describes the characters the author needed to be more descriptive and recreate their personalities. All in all the book was good but it could have been better, and I recommend it to those who have a taste for adventure, war, and history.